EDWARDS, John, author, born in Llanuwchvlynn, Wales, 15 April 1806; died near Rome, New York, 20 January 1887. He was educated in his native place, where he resided until the age of twenty-two, when he settled in Utica, New York, near which town he purchased a farm in 1828. In 1834 he removed to the City of New York, where he remained six years, and then returned to his farm in Oneida County. In 1866 he purchased a smal1 farm in the suburbs of Rome, New York, where he resided until his death. In his native land, and among the Welsh inhabitants of America, Mr. Edwards was known as Eos Glan Twrch (" the nightingale of the Twrch"), his birthplace being on the banks of the River Twrch.

He began to write at an early age, and soon became a successful competitor for the prizes awarded at the "Eisteddfodau" the annual gatherings of the Welsh people for the best songs and prose essays. His name was among the foremost in connection with these yearly festivals, and he was an adjudicator in many of them. To his influence and labors some of the earliest Welsh periodicals in America are indebted for their successful establishment. To many of them he was a constant contributor, and of one, "Amserai," published in Utica, New York, he was editor. His published poems include "The Crucifixion" (1853) and "The Omnipresence of God" (1859).